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In 2007, the Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee (OHTAC) developed a decision framework to guide decision making around nondrug health technologies. In 2012, OHTAC commissioned a revision of this framework to enhance its usability and deepen its conceptual and theoretical foundations.

Methods:

The committee overseeing this work used several methods: (a) a priori consensus on guiding principles, (b) a scoping review of decision attributes and processes used globally in health technology assessment (HTA), (c) presentations by methods experts and members of review committees, and (d) committee deliberations over a period of 3 years.

The revised Ontario Decision Framework is similar in some respects to frameworks used in HTA worldwide. Its distinctive characteristics are that: it is based on an explicit set of social values; HTA paradigms (evidence based medicine, economics, and bioethics/social science) are used to aggregate decision attributes; and that it is rooted in a theoretical framework of optimal decision making, rather than one related to broad social goals, such as health or welfare maximization.

Objectives: We conducted a systematic review of quantitative research regarding patients’ preferences, perspectives and values for ventilation among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Our objective was to explore the feasibility and desirability of incorporating patient preferences within the health technology assessment (HTA) process by working through a case study.

Methods: Medical and economic databases were searched for studies published in English from 1990 through March 4, 2011. Studies were selected based on title and abstract. Due to the heterogeneity of the studies, data were analyzed using a narrative synthesis approach.

Results: Among 1833 identified citations, twelve studies met our inclusion criteria. Ten of these studies pertained to COPD patient preferences for ventilation. Results indicate that a significant proportion of COPD patients are willing to forgo ventilation, particularly when it is expressed as “indefinite life support” (60–78 percent) rather than as temporary modality. Results indicate that patient preferences for mechanical or noninvasive ventilation cannot be predicted by covariates (e.g., age, quality of life) or by others who are frequently called upon to make decisions are their behalf.

Conclusions: We found that it is indeed feasible to conduct a systematic review of quantitative preference-related evidence for an HTA topic. However, the process of conducting this preference-related case study also revealed several challenges because there is a high degree of variation in taxonomy, instrumentation, and study design. Therefore, we do not recommend it as a routine part of the HTA process, but we suggest that it is a promising area to pursue for preference-sensitive technological decisions.